


Burn Out

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Back to the Future (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1635728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marty McFly would really rather not put two and two together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn Out

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Caoimhe

 

 

"Goodnight, Future-Boy! Sleep well! Oh, ah, try not to think too much about your brother's missing head. We'll fix it all up tomorrow morning, never fear!"

*click*

Marty McFly had not been having a very nice day.

Sleep was flat out of the question, though he'd been awake for... thirty? forty hours now? That was not counting that catnap when he was supposed to be meeting the Doc in the parking lot, and *definitely* not counting lying there passed out in his mom's bed. His thin, young, *bodacious*... bad bad brain stoppitstoppit... nope, all hope of sleep ended when his sweet, innocent mother's hand pressed a cold pack to his aching head.

And now, head still throbbing and lying in the dark on the not-as-young-as-expected Doc's living room sofa, Marty found it impossible to think of anything but his mother taking off his jeans off his unconscious body and *Oedipal complex! Oedipal complex!* In the detached part or his brain, usually reserved for the composition of witty retorts for later use, this made perfect sense. The human mind was not cut out for the kind of trauma his had just been through. A nuclear-powered, time-traveling DeLorean. Doc, being the Doc, making the crazy thing work. Disgruntled Libyan terrorists shooting him with a goddamned machine gun. The big grassy field where, one second before - no, several decades into the future - there had been - would be - a parking lot. The litter-free, porn-free, wino-free town square. Biff, all toned and just as ugly as ever. His dad... his dad. Grandpa Sam. Baby Uncle Joey. The Doc... again, and alive and well.

His mom, staring at him while the rest of her family watched their very first television show. (God, he'd felt her eyes bore straight into his skull. Why, why did she have to make such a fool out of herself? Just... staring.)

The photo. His brother's head... erased? He, Marty McFly, taking his dad's injuries and humiliation, and in the process...

The implications were as obvious as the lipstick on a Cure fan, so of course Marty was resolutely not calculating the brain-fracturing impossibility that was his soon-to-be non-existence. Nope, instead of wondering about the science behind just *why* Dave's head would disappear first rather than the whole photo crumbling to dust mummy-style along with Marty's clothes and, hey, his body, Marty figured his brain was reverting to basic survival mode and just wanted to pass on the McFly genes in a bad, bad way. *She grabbed your thigh, man! At dinner, under the table, where Grandma and Grandpa Bains could have seen. What balls! What... eyes! It's all perfectly natural to...*

Marty abruptly flipped over onto his stomach, willing his hard-on to go away. *Goddamn purple underwear. Why'd she have to see... Why am I even... This is SICK.* He breathed hard for a few seconds before flipping over again and banging the bruise on his head hard against the corner of the coffee table. Swearing, he ran towards the adjoining bathroom (barking his shin on some large gadgety thing in the dark) and puked.

It was time for a little walk outside in the cold, cold night air. Marty wiped his mouth and spat. Disgusting. He found his jeans and sneakers, stumbled outside half-dressed, and broke into a run down what *would be* John F. Kennedy Lane. He sprinted until his face screwed tight from the pain in his legs and the stitch in his side, and then he ran an extra block just to drive the point home. He grabbed a lamppost, gasping for breath. *Jesus H. Fucking Christ!* he mouthed, kicking the post and jamming his toes. *Smooth move, McFly.* He collapsed onto somebody's well-manicured front lawn, inches short of a chrysanthemum bed.

Lying there in the dew, Marty forced his thoughts to Jessica, his hot, clever Jessica. They'd only just done it for the first time last week: His first, not hers... no, not hers by a long shot! Somehow, though, Jessica's adventurous past didn't amount to "slut" in Marty's head. No, for some reason he wasn't jealous or insecure knowing that other guys (he sat across from one at English) had felt her up in the back of trucks and movie theaters and God knows where. She'd left those meatheads high and dry, and where was she now? With... a mediocre guitar player and C+ student in whom she must see *something*.

That particular afternoon had only been a little bit nerve-wracking. They'd just gotten out of school and Marty was feeling the adrenaline, having done better on Mrs. McCarthey's notorious biology mid-term than he or anyone else had expected. A few blocks away from her house, behind a neighbor's greenhouse, he'd pushed her up against the glass and kissed her with nervous purpose, grabbing ineffectually at the snap on her jeans. She'd laughed, whispered, "Let me do it," and shown him how the deed was done. She'd even had a condom tucked away in her pencil case, even though she hadn't been seeing anyone but him for months, which Marty though was just spectacular. Although the event was over quickly, she'd looked happy and dragged him back to her bedroom to neck.

Safe in these recollections, Marty's mind drifted to the seventeen-year-old George McFly. Pathetic, greasy, simpering and *familiar*. Poor guy. He was the quintessential nerd Marty would avoid in the cafeteria. So his dad did Biff's homework and laughed at his asshole jokes, like always. Did he also have to wax his enormous, black, gorgeous... hotrod? Perform stupid pet tricks for Biff's cronies? Get pantsed in crowded hallways?

And then Marty, coldly objective now, considered his young mom: Pretty, from a well-off family, probably popular with her girlfriends - a fabulous catch. What, on God's green earth, had the lovely Lorainne Bains ever seen in George McFly? Now that George had not lain on her bed all helpless and puppy-like, what *would* she see?

What... could she see?

*Utterly hopeless. The Doc's brilliant enough to pull off the clock tower thing, but you can't go back to a future you DON'T FREAKIN' EXIST IN. You'll never see Jennifer again, or your band, or your embarrassing siblings (they'll never be born; you've killed them, you asshole!), or the Led Zeppelin concert next month or goddamn anything... Mom will marry a doctor or a corporate pig or something while Dad just geeks his way through a wretched, lonely life... And you, Einstein? Your hand is going to disappear one day soon, followed by a leg or an ear, until one day your bed - the MENTAL hospital bed - is empty. Or maybe you'll just spontaneously combust, leaving only a scorch mark on the sidewalk. Pictures will be blank, of course, so you'll fall from tabloid medical mystery to urban legend...*

And then Marty's brain gave up entirely. So he struggled to his feet, t-shirt soaked, and stalked shivering back up the street toward the Doc's house.

Half an hour later, he was dreaming of his mom kissing Biff goodbye for work while a little turban-wearing Biff-spawn chased his dad down the street with a toy machine gun.

Disclaimer: Great movie, fun characters, not mine. I am a starving student so suing me would be spectacularly unproductive.  
Notes: Thanks to my patient beta readers, Snoozy and Malograntum.

 


End file.
